Aberdeen have an unchanged squad. The Dons will again be without longer-term casualties Isaac Osbourne, Andrew Considine and Chris Clark.

The latter two are out for the season and Osbourne is still sidelined with a hamstring problem.

Aberdeen manager Craig Brown does not believe his retirement announcement will have any impact on his players during their final attempts to make the top six.

On Thursday Brown revealed he would step down as Dons manager at the end of the season but there remain eight games left in the SPL with the next three crucial.

Aberdeen travel to Celtic Park in ninth place in the SPL with games against Hearts and Dundee United to follow.

But Brown does not feel the certainty regarding his situation will have any effect.

"I don't think it will make the slightest difference," he said.

"Players are very resilient. Obviously they want to play for a manager they are pleased to play for.

"But it's their job to play football and if there's no manager or if (Jose) Mourinho came in or if Sir Alex (Ferguson) came back, they would hopefully be as enthusiastic for us as they would be for them.

"Over the years I'm not going to deny Sir Alex might make a difference, I'm sure he would.

"But in the immediate term there will be no difference in attitude."

Aberdeen have given themselves a huge task to get into the top six after taking two points from their last three games but Brown is not resigned to the club's fourth consecutive season in the bottom half.

"We have the second best defensive record in the SPL - only Celtic have a better defensive record," he said.

"So you need to defend well at Celtic Park and the evidence of the season is that we have defended well, particularly well.

"What we haven't done, everyone knows, is at the other end.

"So we take that good defensive record to Celtic Park, we take the enthusiasm and determination to try to finish in the top echelon of the league and I think you'll see a good performance."